[Music]
during 2002 I found myself in Malawi in
Southeast Africa for the first time and
I was there involved in emergency
feeding programs helping bring food from
the cities into into villages where
people were literally eating the the
leaves of trees and the roots of trees
to survive that the previous year had
been a year of of terrible drought
across the whole of Southeast Africa at
one point many millions of people faced
starvation and while I was there those
those months in 2002 I began thinking a
bit about the the cause of of chronic
hunger I began thinking about the fact
that that chronic hunger isn’t really
caused by by a lack of food there’s more
than enough food in the world for all of
us to eat well chronic hunger is caused
by by poverty and that’s something I was
considering that year as we bought that
food with donations and in in the cities
and brought it into those villages where
people were hungry and during the course
of the work I made this family it was a
family that really changed the course of
my life the the father of the family had
died some time before I visited their
their home and when I met them the
mother Emma was also dying she had AIDS
and she said to me as she sat they are
surrounded by it by her children you
know there’s only one thing left for me
now and that that’s to pray that
somebody will look after my children
when I’m gone and then I began talking
to her her oldest child sitting behind
her at the back of that that picture I
took that day and at one point in the
conversation with Edward I said to him
Edward what’s your what’s your hopes for
what’s your am
in life he looked at me and he said I
like to have enough food to eat and I
would like to be able to go to school
one day and that was it that was the
extent of his ambition at 14 years of
age
and that that plight of Edwards is one
shared by millions of children around
the world today around 61 million
children are missing school because of
poverty and hunger around 8,000 children
just under the age of five are dying of
hunger related causes every year around
66 million children go to school hungry
and and that so that’s a huge huge
impact on those on those children that
really traps those children in a in a
cycle of poverty girls especially are
likely to miss out school and in those
circumstances perhaps working in the
fields with their their parents begging
on street corners working in rubbish
dumps finding things to sale for for
recycling and they get caught up in that
vicious cycle of poverty we see that
that that hunger results and their
health being impaired for life millions
of children their development is stunted
by hunger and their their early years of
of life and of course missing out in
education missing out on the possibility
to learn how to to read and write
greatly diminishes the prospects of
their lives
so in the face of that in the face of
that they’re very simple ants or the
Edward gave me that that day and and in
the face of the plight of those millions
of children that I’ve just talked about
we started a very simple project at the
end of that that famine year at the end
of 2002 we called it may these meals and
the project is all about providing one
good
meal every day in a place of Education
so that we meet the the immediate need
of the hungry child for food but at the
same time we always serve that food in a
way that enables those children to come
into the classroom and to gain that
education that can set them free I think
the way that we began this work of
Middies meals is absolutely key why it’s
worked and why it’s grown around the
world in the amazing way that that it
has we recognized from the beginning
that if this was going to work at last
it would have to be owned by the by the
local community more than it could ever
be owned by us from from outside so the
first thing that we did was that we held
some public meetings and we said to the
people that came you know we’ve got this
idea that we would like to start serving
meals in your primary school but we’ll
only try to go forward with this if you
believe in it if you believe this is a
good idea and more than that we’ll only
go forward with it if you’re willing to
take responsibility locally to volunteer
to cook and serve those meals every day
and immediately the people who came to
those meetings said yes this is this is
what we want this is what our children
need and they began drawing up rotors
fatigue turns to come in to volunteer
their time and then the other the other
key thing from the beginning was that as
much as possible we wanted to buy the
food locally to support the local farmer
to support the local economy in Malawi
that meant a dish called lacunae Paulo
which is a corn soya blend it’s like a
porridge made of the the maize grown in
Malawi soya small amount of sugar and
then added vitamins and minerals so a
very nutritious meal but all sourced
from things grown and produced within
Malawi and very inexpensive and so we
began the volunteers in that particular
village began serving the first meals to
about 200 children at the end of 2000
and fairly quickly we could see this
wasn’t just a nice idea it was it was
something that was really going to
change the lives of those children
because almost immediately we could see
the children who’d never been to school
before began coming to the school
because of that promise of a meal
children who used to come just some days
began coming every day after a longer
period of time the teachers reported to
us that there was a very dramatic
improvement in academic performance
children who previously came to school
too hungry to learn were now able to
concentrate and and pass their exams so
this very very simple thing we were
doing we could see there was having
enormous results and around that very
simple thing a movement of support began
to grow first of all here in Scotland
and other parts of the UK and then very
rapidly that support splayed around the
world people volunteering to fundraise
to raise awareness
thousands of people donating the money
required to buy the food in country
people loving this very simple thing
that that worked and for us that that
simplicity and that sharp focus of
mission is really key something we never
want to lose as we grow this pictures of
the global HQ of Mary’s meals it’s a
shade that I borrowed off my father back
in 1992 to collect some aid when we were
helping the refugees and in Bosnia and
I’ve never given it back to him and and
but that’s a deliberate thing as well
it’s a symbol of that simplicity that we
want to keep under a recognition of the
fact that when people give us the
nation’s they do that so that we can buy
food for hungry children not so that we
can build fancy officers or pay
ourselves high salaries so today we’re
feeding 1 million two hundred and thirty
thousand one hundred
71 children every school day across 14
different countries so Malawi still by
far the biggest project we feed they are
over 30% of the primary school
population in Liberia we have a very
large project they are Liberia as one of
the worst statistics in the world today
for numbers of children out of school
only about 50% of Liberian children ever
enroll in a school so there we see
particularly dramatic results when we
begin serving the meals in Haiti for
example were working in huge urban slums
they are and again we see those meals
bringing the children off the streets
into school very often for the first
time in northern Kenya working with
semi-nomadic people people who are
really having to adapt their way of life
life due to the climate change they are
and more important than ever that their
children have the opportunity of an
education lots of different logistical
problems to solve always trying to do
that as locally as possible so most
often it’s about moving food and country
this is a dugout canoe taking rice
across the river my hair in Liberia –
one of the villages that we that we
serve they are less often we have to
move food in from outside the country
for example now in the famine situation
in in South Sudan we’re having to take
food in from Uganda from Kenya sometimes
even flying it in but always all these
years we’ve always found a way we’ve
always found a way to keep our promise
when we begin those projects and to
serve the meals every day and that that
promise is really important for us that
promise to the communities that promise
to the children because when they can
trust in that
they keep coming and and it changes
their lives and and one thing that’s
very important for us as this work goes
on is that we see that that we need to
build a body of evidence to show that
this that this works it’s not just
something that we talk about we spender
that we talk about in terms of stories
or anecdotes or something there’s really
working in terms of increased enrollment
increased attendance rates and and so on
one in pipe we see is huge improvements
in agriculture just simply by saying to
farmers that we can buy their produce it
enables them to invest in their farms in
Liberia also every school that takes
part in our mission we say to them they
have to start a school farm now and
begin to contribute towards the project
that way also and we see the
government’s now the Malawian government
now have a policy of school feeding for
the first time and they say publicly
they’ve done that because they see the
impact of midis meals in their country
and I’ll just finish with Veronica
Veronica is now in university studying
finance someone who speaks with great
hope about the future of our country and
her own future
turns out Veronica was amongst the first
group of 200 children we ever fed back
in 2002 an orphan who went sometimes a
week without food at home who said she
never would have gone to school without
her meals so our vision is that every
child in this world should at least be
able to eat one good meal every day in
the place of Education and I believe
that’s possible thank you
[Applause]
during 2002 I found myself in Malawi in
Southeast Africa for the first time and
I was there involved in emergency
feeding programs helping bring food from
the cities into into villages where
people were literally eating the the
leaves of trees and the roots of trees
to survive that the previous year had
been a year of of terrible drought
across the whole of Southeast Africa at
one point many millions of people faced
starvation and while I was there those
those months in 2002 I began thinking a
bit about the the cause of of chronic
hunger I began thinking about the fact
that that chronic hunger isn’t really
caused by by a lack of food there’s more
than enough food in the world for all of
us to eat well chronic hunger is caused
by by poverty and that’s something I was
considering that year as we bought that
food with donations and in in the cities
and brought it into those villages where
people were hungry and during the course
of the work I made this family it was a
family that really changed the course of
my life the the father of the family had
died some time before I visited their
their home and when I met them the
mother Emma was also dying she had AIDS
and she said to me as she sat they are
surrounded by it by her children you
know there’s only one thing left for me
now and that that’s to pray that
somebody will look after my children
when I’m gone and then I began talking
to her her oldest child sitting behind
her at the back of that that picture I
took that day and at one point in the
conversation with Edward I said to him
Edward what’s your what’s your hopes for
what’s your am
in life he looked at me and he said I
like to have enough food to eat and I
would like to be able to go to school
one day and that was it that was the
extent of his ambition at 14 years of
age
and that that plight of Edwards is one
shared by millions of children around
the world today around 61 million
children are missing school because of
poverty and hunger around 8,000 children
just under the age of five are dying of
hunger related causes every year around
66 million children go to school hungry
and and that so that’s a huge huge
impact on those on those children that
really traps those children in a in a
cycle of poverty girls especially are
likely to miss out school and in those
circumstances perhaps working in the
fields with their their parents begging
on street corners working in rubbish
dumps finding things to sale for for
recycling and they get caught up in that
vicious cycle of poverty we see that
that that hunger results and their
health being impaired for life millions
of children their development is stunted
by hunger and their their early years of
of life and of course missing out in
education missing out on the possibility
to learn how to to read and write
greatly diminishes the prospects of
their lives
so in the face of that in the face of
that they’re very simple ants or the
Edward gave me that that day and and in
the face of the plight of those millions
of children that I’ve just talked about
we started a very simple project at the
end of that that famine year at the end
of 2002 we called it may these meals and
the project is all about providing one
good
meal every day in a place of Education
so that we meet the the immediate need
of the hungry child for food but at the
same time we always serve that food in a
way that enables those children to come
into the classroom and to gain that
education that can set them free I think
the way that we began this work of
Middies meals is absolutely key why it’s
worked and why it’s grown around the
world in the amazing way that that it
has we recognized from the beginning
that if this was going to work at last
it would have to be owned by the by the
local community more than it could ever
be owned by us from from outside so the
first thing that we did was that we held
some public meetings and we said to the
people that came you know we’ve got this
idea that we would like to start serving
meals in your primary school but we’ll
only try to go forward with this if you
believe in it if you believe this is a
good idea and more than that we’ll only
go forward with it if you’re willing to
take responsibility locally to volunteer
to cook and serve those meals every day
and immediately the people who came to
those meetings said yes this is this is
what we want this is what our children
need and they began drawing up rotors
fatigue turns to come in to volunteer
their time and then the other the other
key thing from the beginning was that as
much as possible we wanted to buy the
food locally to support the local farmer
to support the local economy in Malawi
that meant a dish called lacunae Paulo
which is a corn soya blend it’s like a
porridge made of the the maize grown in
Malawi soya small amount of sugar and
then added vitamins and minerals so a
very nutritious meal but all sourced
from things grown and produced within
Malawi and very inexpensive and so we
began the volunteers in that particular
village began serving the first meals to
about 200 children at the end of 2000
and fairly quickly we could see this
wasn’t just a nice idea it was it was
something that was really going to
change the lives of those children
because almost immediately we could see
the children who’d never been to school
before began coming to the school
because of that promise of a meal
children who used to come just some days
began coming every day after a longer
period of time the teachers reported to
us that there was a very dramatic
improvement in academic performance
children who previously came to school
too hungry to learn were now able to
concentrate and and pass their exams so
this very very simple thing we were
doing we could see there was having
enormous results and around that very
simple thing a movement of support began
to grow first of all here in Scotland
and other parts of the UK and then very
rapidly that support splayed around the
world people volunteering to fundraise
to raise awareness
thousands of people donating the money
required to buy the food in country
people loving this very simple thing
that that worked and for us that that
simplicity and that sharp focus of
mission is really key something we never
want to lose as we grow this pictures of
the global HQ of Mary’s meals it’s a
shade that I borrowed off my father back
in 1992 to collect some aid when we were
helping the refugees and in Bosnia and
I’ve never given it back to him and and
but that’s a deliberate thing as well
it’s a symbol of that simplicity that we
want to keep under a recognition of the
fact that when people give us the
nation’s they do that so that we can buy
food for hungry children not so that we
can build fancy officers or pay
ourselves high salaries so today we’re
feeding 1 million two hundred and thirty
thousand one hundred
71 children every school day across 14
different countries so Malawi still by
far the biggest project we feed they are
over 30% of the primary school
population in Liberia we have a very
large project they are Liberia as one of
the worst statistics in the world today
for numbers of children out of school
only about 50% of Liberian children ever
enroll in a school so there we see
particularly dramatic results when we
begin serving the meals in Haiti for
example were working in huge urban slums
they are and again we see those meals
bringing the children off the streets
into school very often for the first
time in northern Kenya working with
semi-nomadic people people who are
really having to adapt their way of life
life due to the climate change they are
and more important than ever that their
children have the opportunity of an
education lots of different logistical
problems to solve always trying to do
that as locally as possible so most
often it’s about moving food and country
this is a dugout canoe taking rice
across the river my hair in Liberia –
one of the villages that we that we
serve they are less often we have to
move food in from outside the country
for example now in the famine situation
in in South Sudan we’re having to take
food in from Uganda from Kenya sometimes
even flying it in but always all these
years we’ve always found a way we’ve
always found a way to keep our promise
when we begin those projects and to
serve the meals every day and that that
promise is really important for us that
promise to the communities that promise
to the children because when they can
trust in that
they keep coming and and it changes
their lives and and one thing that’s
very important for us as this work goes
on is that we see that that we need to
build a body of evidence to show that
this that this works it’s not just
something that we talk about we spender
that we talk about in terms of stories
or anecdotes or something there’s really
working in terms of increased enrollment
increased attendance rates and and so on
one in pipe we see is huge improvements
in agriculture just simply by saying to
farmers that we can buy their produce it
enables them to invest in their farms in
Liberia also every school that takes
part in our mission we say to them they
have to start a school farm now and
begin to contribute towards the project
that way also and we see the
government’s now the Malawian government
now have a policy of school feeding for
the first time and they say publicly
they’ve done that because they see the
impact of midis meals in their country
and I’ll just finish with Veronica
Veronica is now in university studying
finance someone who speaks with great
hope about the future of our country and
her own future
turns out Veronica was amongst the first
group of 200 children we ever fed back
in 2002 an orphan who went sometimes a
week without food at home who said she
never would have gone to school without
her meals so our vision is that every
child in this world should at least be
able to eat one good meal every day in
the place of Education and I believe
that’s possible thank you
[Applause]
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